198 ORGANIZING SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH FOR WAR 



Contracts for Personal Services 



The regular staff of OSRD was recruited through Civil Service as is the 

 normal practice of Government agencies. Civil Service procedures w^ere not 

 adapted to the type of employment contemplated for the Office of Field 

 Service, however, and the National War Agencies Appropriation Act, 1944, 

 approved July 12, 1943, carried the following authority for OSRD: 



Salaries and expenses: For all necessary expenses of the OflBce of Scientific 

 Research and Development, including . . . the employment by contract or 

 otherwise, without regard to civil service or classification laws, at not to exceed 

 $25 per day, of engineers, scientists, civilian analysts, technicians, or other neces- 

 sary professional personnel . . . 



The contract form used under this authorization provided, in substance, 

 as follows: (i) general description of the employee's duties. The employee 

 agreed to perform such duties or services as might be assigned to him in 

 a specified field, under the supervision and control of the Contracting Offi- 

 cer or an authorized representative; (2) term of employment and payment 

 for services, including allowances for travel; (3) patent clause embodying 

 the substance of the OSRD short form clause; (4) security and public policy 

 provisions; (5) provision that all disputes concerning questions of fact 

 should be decided by the Contracting Officer, subject to appeal to the 

 Director of OSRD. 



Contract Drafting 



Following the Director's approval of NDRC, CMR or other recommenda- 

 tions, the contract section of the Administrative Office prepared appropriate 

 letters of intent to prospective contractors based upon information furnished 

 by the originating division. The supporting papers were then forwarded to 

 the legal division for the drafting of the contract. Drafting of standard form 

 contracts was done by a drafting unit (originally in the contract section, 

 later in the legal division) which concentrated upon those not involving 

 difficult questions or negotiations. Contracts involving unusual questions 

 were handled individually by other attorneys. The system kept the difficult 

 contracts from delaying the simpler ones. 



After the drafting was completed, the legal division endorsed its approval 

 as to form on a "recommendation copy" and returned the file to the contract 

 section. In the early days the contract was then sent to the General Counsel 

 of OEM for his approval as to form, but this requirement was later dropped. 

 The recommendation copy was next sent to the supervising technical divi- 

 sion for its endorsement if the draft correctly incorporated the division's 



